GYLA Addresses Tbilisi Mayor with an Open Letter

On February 11, Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association submitted an application in Tbilisi City Hall requesting access to public information. In particular, GYLA requested information about spending of funds transferred to two legal entities – non commercial legal entity Old City Rehabilitation and Development Fund and non commercial legal entity Tbilisi Development Fund from 2005 to July 5, 2011, total of more than GEL 367 million. In particular, Tbilisi City Hall was requested to provide access to the following public information:

1. Amount of funds spent by Old City Rehabilitaiton and Devleopment Fund, and Tbilisi Development Fund for each individual object restored and rehabilitated in Tbilisi;

2. Specific companies that performed works commissioned by the funds for rehabilitation and restoration of each individual object;
 
3. Who selected companies for performing restoration and rehabilitation of each individual object, and how;
 
Tbilisi City Hall responded in written that GYLA should apply to the non-commercial legal entity Tbilisi Development Fund located at65 Aghmashenebeli Avenue, Tbilisi, Office N1, to receive the information.
 
Even though Tbilisi City Hall was legally obligated to refer the application of GYLA to the Fund for further actions, GYLA took the city hall’s “advice” and applied to the Fund on March 11, 2013, with a letter sent to the address indicated above (65 Aghmashenebeli Avenue, Tbilisi, Office N1). The letter was returned to the sender with a note “Not at this address”.
 
We believe that in view of evident lack of transparency of spending hundreds of millions of GEL transferred from Tbilisi budget to legal entities of private law, lack of public’s knowledge of what these funds do, lack of public access to reports submitted by the fund to Tbilisi City Hall (even though the city hall is legally obligated under court’s decision to provide access to these reports), communication of wrong address by Tbilisi City Hall is unacceptible and raises more questions about activities of the fund.
 
Therefore, we apply to you with a request to provide access to information requested by GYLA’s application submitted to the city hall on February 11, 2013, and also to provide us with a factual address of the non-commercial legal entity Tbilisi Development Fund.

www.gyla.ge